Nagpur: The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Friday asked the Vidarbha Irrigation Development Corporation (VIDC) to submit a status report on all pending projects coming under its jurisdiction. The court asked the
VIDC to complete formalities by July 12.
The directives came while hearing two PILs related to multi-crore irrigation scam filed by NGO Janmanch and social worker Atul Jagtap.
Earlier, petitioners pointed out that VIDC had failed to submit progress made in over 45 irrigation projects, after the PILs were filed in 2012. They claimed that hardly any efforts were made to complete the projects like Gosikhurd, which led to multiple escalation in their construction costs.
Petitioner stated that all these projects were inordinately delayed and later their expenditure was revised repeatedly, in collusion with the VIDC officials, with a view to benefit the contractors.
Earlier on June 27, another NGO — Loknayak Bapuji Ane Smarak Samiti (LBASS) — moved the HC accusing the VIDC of failure to complete about 45 irrigation projects in the region within deadline, thus depriving over 30 lakh farmers of irrigation facilities.
The NGO pointed out that it was a part of ‘Sinchan Shodh Yatra’ along with social workers where they visited about 16 out of 45 projects and found them incomplete, even after new deadline. According to it, not even 10% work is completed in all these projects. The NGO blamed VIDC for failure to complete even a single project in Vidarbha, which would have brought over 10 lakh hectares under the irrigation and saved poor farmers from taking extreme steps due to crop failure and mounting debts.
LBASS further stated that in some cases dams were completed, but failure of VIDC to construct canals, sub-canals and distributaries led to water not reaching farmers.